


Fallout in Fallout HAH

by GooseWhiskers



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Arguing, Betrayal, Break Up, Drama, Emotional Hurt, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Loss of Trust, Snark, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 16:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17410631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooseWhiskers/pseuds/GooseWhiskers
Summary: Nate's been walking the line between undercover Agent and Institute operative for too long, and now Piper isn't sure what side he's on. She wants the truth... but this time it's ugly.





	Fallout in Fallout HAH

**Author's Note:**

> forgive me for the title I could think of literally nothing decent || Teen rating for language  
> This is an older draft and I now headcanon a lot more to the fight, but it's still quite special to me!

“I’ve got a better question,” she replied testily, “Why are you even still there?”

Nate blinked. He smiled - the smile that used to send tingles down her spine.  “If you’d had the chance to take a shower there you wouldn’t be asking me that. They have _toilet paper._ ”

“Ha. Funny. Yeah you’re a real riot.” She snapped, pulling a barstool up beside him and entreating, “Blue. You learned the truth. You can free the synths and shut the Institute down, maybe for good. Why don’t you just _do it_ and get out of that ghoul’s den, before one of them realizes you actually have a brain and turns you into nutrition supplement 111?”

The smile faded. “Because…” The corner of Nathan’s lip twitched, and his attention flickered to a dark corner of the room. “Maybe - what if there was another way?”

Realization washed over Piper like lighter fluid on an open flame. “Blue _are you serious_! They’re _murderers!_ The idea was to break in, infiltrate them so you could _stop this._ Not _join_ them! You said it yourself - they won’t negotiate. You’re only allowed to stay there as long as you play by their rules.”

“I _know that_ but… It’s not like it was when I went undercover. Now… if I betray the Institute, I betray _him_ , too.”

Wincing, Piper brushed her hair back. “That ‘unconditional fatherly love’ angle is admirable, bu- _t_ ,” she ground her ‘t’, struggling to temper her words. Nate’s intentions were good, she had to remember that. “Shaun’s had a lifetime of being brainwashed by Institute cronies. Like _you_ said - he’s just _using_ you. You’re not his dad, Blue. You’re just a means to an end.”

“Maybe, but-” Nate hardly seemed to hear. “He’s my son, Pips. He’s … still my son. Who would I be if I just gave up on him? Didn’t we agree that if there was a way for me to help him, I had to?”

Nate reached for her hands, but she pulled away from him. Piper couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice, “Help how? By kidnapping innocent people? By murdering entire families who just happened to be in the way? Or maybe you forgot about the trail of bodies we followed to Shaun’s front door.”

“It’s more complicated than that.” He frowned, eyes wide and round.

“Blue they… they’ve done nothing but lie and kill. Whatever their reasons -,” Piper’s leather gloves felt tight against her clenched fists. “ _No,_ I think it’s pretty simple, actually.”

Nate ran his hands through his hair, inhaling deeply and filling the room with silence long enough for her to become aware of the loud drumming of her heart inside her ribs.

Abruptly, he lurched from his seat and turned away. A shadow loomed over his shoulders. “I get that maybe it doesn’t make sense on the surface. Of course they’re not perfect. They’ve done some bad things. I’m not - _denying_ that! But there’s _good,_ too! Shaun’s _created_ something down there. The technology we have, th- the future we could build, _the lives we could-”_

“How many more people have to die before you can finally start saving them?” Piper spat, cutting Nate off. “What about University Point? The Switchboard? _What about Virgil, and Maisie’s husband?_ Doesn’t the price seem a little steep to you?”

The space between his eyebrows creased. “People are going to die either way. I’m trying to save as many as I can.” Suddenly his voice pitched upward with impatience, “You’ve never even set foot inside the Institute!” His head tilted back, lips tugged downward in a pout, or maybe a sneer. “Could you at least entertain the idea that I might know what I’m talking about for a _minute_?”  

Her eyes narrowed. “I dunno. Maybe if you start talking some _sense?_ Right now all I’m hearing is cheap taglines from the Institute’s summer brochure.”

“I’m doing what I have to, and some of that isn’t pretty, okay?” Nate snapped. “If the Institute doesn’t trust me, I’ll be kicked out - or killed! And so will _you_ , and _Nat_ , and the Railroad, and the Minutemen, and _everyone else_ I care about. That means getting my hands dirty. For _us._ ”

She bristled, “Unh-uh - don’t you _dare_ pretend this is about _us!_ You don’t get to use _us_ as an excuse for being the Boogeyman’s big stick!”

“I’m sorry that trying to save the entire fucking Commonwealth isn’t as easy as just writing a newspaper article condemning what you don’t understand.”

To his credit, Nate seemed to realize he’d overstepped a boundary. She could see it in the way his expression shifted - even as broiling, untempered rage flooded her senses. The way he’d said it - like she was beneath him. Like she was _nothing._  

“Here’s what I understand.” Piper replied, daggers in every word. There was a hot pressure behind her eyes, the pain of the betrayal hitting her before the conscious realization of it. “That teleport hijacker you built scrambled your molecules and put your ass where your brain was supposed to be.”

“Piper-”

“People are being _murdered_ in _cold blood_ \- and _‘Father’_ ” , she drolled Shaun’s pretentious title out demeaningly, waving her hands and wiggling her fingers, “is the one calling those shots. It doesn’t matter who he is, or what crazy ‘last hope for humanity’ bullshit he’s calling it. Who he wants you to be is cruel and wrong and it’s _not the way to fix things_.” A wave of frustration brought tears to her eyes, overwhelming her. She shoved his chest, head jerking as she cried out, “You used to know that!”

Nate staggered back a step, more out of surprise at her assault than anything.

It only made her angrier. “But maybe that’s not obvious enough now that you’re looking down on everyone.” She scoffed, “Hell, maybe that’s not even the point anymore. The Institute offers you real power and all you have to do is sweep a few innocents under the rug? Why not, eh! Who cares what happens to a bunch of surface roaches. As long as _Director Nathaniel_ gets to wipe his ass with _real toilet paper_ until the end of days? Who. cares.”

“Piper _please_ \- would you just listen to me!” Nate entreated, a thread of anxiety in his voice. He turned, grasping the table for support and then shoving it with an angry hiss, “When I’m Director, they’ll have to tell me everything. I can make them stop. I can _change things._ If I just stay with it a little longer, play their games until-”

“Until what, _Blue_?” She challenged fiercely, “Until they’re not _games_ anymore? Until you’re The Institute’s _lapdog_ , just like Kellogg, and you can’t tell the difference between right and wrong?”

The air between them went cold as ice.

“But maybe you already are.” She realized, a wry smile covering the gaping hole that was opening up inside her. Slowly, she shook her head. “The man I loved would never say the things you’re saying. You’re not him at all, are you?”

_“Piper-”_

She sneered with disgust, a brittle mask over the pain bleeding into her voice, “I don’t _know_ you.”

For the first time all night, Nate turned a shade of genuine, undiluted fear. “You think I’m a-”

“A synth?” She nearly scoffed. “No. And that’s the worst part of it. They didn’t have to replace you with some robotic imitation, you turned into this on your own.”

He took a step forward, and she took one back, chest tight. The cold air between them burned her cheeks. She fought back tears. “Get out of my house, Nate.”


End file.
